Retrace the history of the accounts of human values given in Western Philosophy, and you’ll probably find a dead end with some rather ordinary philosophic problems.

Hegel reminds us that human values and moral and ethical problems arise in historical circumstances.

Society and history has to do with economics and the state.

Culture is less systematic. A culture based on spectacle and images has a peculiar nonsystematic character.

Freud outlines the process of economic building with cultural unawareness.

The conscious mind is a very small part of our psychic life.

Freud’s goal was for the unconscious (id) to become the conscious (ego).

Mass culture turns the conscious to unconscious.

We can tune out the culture, however, we cannot destroy it.

Civilisation can be seen as a drama between eros (love) and thanatos (death).

The mechanism of one side has clearly gained the upper hand (thanatos).

However, eternal eros might come in and strike a blow for the other side.

This is about to be a global situation that will be difficult to solve because there are no concrete walls.

We must reinject resistance into or at least put up a simulation of resistance to it.

The worst thing we can do is to be unanimously for something.

We have not yet written the last obituary for radical democracy.

St. Paul’s answer is in Corinthians. It is a masterpiece of sophistry, rhetoric and bitter invective.

Philosophy is disconsolate in principle.

Hegel said dialectics or philosophy does not run from detestation but tarries with it awhile and looks it in its face.

The structural principles of our society are as barbaric in their structure as they ever were, perhaps more so.

SUGGESTED READING TO ACCOMPANY Philosophy and Human Values
Plato’s “Meno” – perhaps the classic Socratic dialogue. The topic is can “excellence” (virtue) be taught. Both in style and content, this is a founding document of Western self-understanding.
Mill’s “On Liberty” – a brilliant defense of what Isiah Berlin calls “negative freedom”, namely the right of the individual to be free from stale coercion.
Kierkegaard’s “The Sickness Unto Death” – a fascinating challenge to our various projects of achieving authentic selfhood, written in a difficult but beautifully ironic style.
Freud’s “Civilization and Its Discontents” – a dramatic work of incredible sweep, it presents a powerful dialectic of the development of human beings.
Nietzsche’s “On the Geneaology of Morals” – a devastating attack on traditional morality and moral theories, this work offers a kind of gateway to the most recent debates on” modernity and postmodernity.
Hegel’s “Reason in History” – a classic statement of the Western understanding of the role of human beings in the development of the modern world.

4 Comments:

This is a fantastic outline. It is really a summary of philosophy and its encounter with human values. I am a little surprised that there is no serious mention of the scholastic period. I don’t know if this is intentional or an oversight.

Yes, as you say, it might be intentional. Perhaps, because Rick’s approach is very much in one direction (socratic – with a touch of the iconoclastic?) One problem with the Scholastic is that it, too, is all of a piece: I don’t know of any major scholastic philosopher who doubts (let alone REFUTES) the existence of God! Probably Kierkegaard is the first “christian” philosopher to seek a “re-assessment” of God????

A common feature of every period of “philosophic history” is the “refutation” (or “modification”) of previous ideas: e.g. Descartes – Hume – Kant – Hegel – Nietzsche. This doesn’t really happen in the Mediaeval Period (perhaps because any philosopher questioning Church doctrine was “dead meat”!)

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Raymond Candelaria September 15, 2019 at 2:52 am on AboutWhy is it Marxist and Critical Theory professors have this simplistic rigid interpretation of hierarchical power structures? Sex, race, ethnicity and religion aren't exclusive criteria of hierarchical systems. Social status or class. "You may meet all the above criteria but without an Ivy League degree you'll never get a job in 'The State Department'. Makaveli put it best
there are two groups of people the "great" and the "people". The "great" wish to oppress and rule the "people", while the "people" wish not to be ruled or oppressed.
To think a peasants or surfs benefited fmore than slaves is foolish. Whether be feudal, communism or facsism are collective ideologies that in practicality end just the same, authoritarian rule of a select few at the expense of the masses and benefits those on top of the hierarchy.
The collectivization of private property and mean of production (whatever that means) is to deny the proletariat the fruits of their labor. Capitalism (voluntary exchange) is by no means a perfect solution the collective I Central planning has always had horrible results. If individuals working on their personal interest can't be trusted then how could a person be trusted with sole authority? Marxism, socialism monopolizes what it seeks to aviod. It's an idealistic ideology suffering from a severe
case of psychological projection.

Tingting Zhou August 7, 2019 at 6:32 am on 208 Nietzsche’s Progeny (1991)Thanks for this brilliant and insightful lectures, and thanks for sharing it without boundaries. There are more and more human lives coming to world, and less and less human in its real sense. It’s always unsettling for me that people might eventually stop fighting and give up feeling. Thanks Rick.

Magne August 1, 2019 at 4:25 am on AboutBrilliant! Thanks so much for sharing this!

ctrlshift July 31, 2019 at 2:31 pm on In MemoriumThanks for posting this Max. It was worth the wait.

Ward July 16, 2019 at 7:50 am on AboutI was wondering about the original VHS tapes. Does anyone know if there was ever a release with the Question and Answers? He keeps alluding to question and answer period and I am pretty intrigued. Also, the last video of one of his talks seems a lot shorter at like 33 minutes and cuts out fairly abruptly. Is that intended? I have only found the videos on youtube. Just wondering as I've watched each series at least 3 times completely, if not more and I want to squeeze every bit I can. What a lucid orator, truly appreciate the "for the non-footnoting public" style of talk and the folk-ism style he employs.

Hiram July 9, 2019 at 1:38 am on AboutSome folks really are born posthumously...
In the minds of those they touch.
I feel fortunate to have been "touched" in this way.

Jade Aslain June 7, 2019 at 12:29 pm on 208 Nietzsche’s Progeny (1991)Speaking of "first lines," it should be noted that the phrase "everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation or an image," comes from the first line of the *Society of the Spectacle* by Guy Debord.

Fatih Kilic May 16, 2019 at 3:24 am on AboutAmazing! Thanks for sharing your Duke history with us!

Fatih Kilic May 13, 2019 at 11:39 am on AboutHi Marshall,
Sending this message from the Netherlands.
I just wanted to share that I am very grateful that I have found your dad's lecture series. He seems to be an amazing personality! He thought me a lot and I think his voice has been a wake-up call in some way.
I am thinking of sharing his lectures with my professors and have already shared it to some friends, so that more people can enjoy what he has left to the world.
All the very best.

ctrlshift May 10, 2019 at 12:28 pm on In MemoriumThe documentary didn't work out unfortunately. I am not sure how far they got, however I do know that they got as far as interviewing some of Rick's family, but ultimately abandoned the project. There is some commentary about it in Max Roderick's essay which will be published here when Max is ready.